I get the distinct impression that the days of Dave Bautista, leading man, are coming to an end. Ironically, this statement comes in the wake of a film I more-or-less enjoyed. But the general audience disapproval here has me questioning whether I truly enjoyed it or did I just find this mindless, plot-challenged cinematic car wreck a significant improvement over his last mindless, plot-challenged cinematic car wreck.
It could be the latter. My Spy: the Eternal City gets worse every time I think about it.
Don’t get me wrong, The Killer’s Game has an awful plot. It takes a great deal of acting, real acting, to get to the punch line. And yet, I cannot deny this film is a huge improvement over the last Dave Bautista film. For one thing, he’s allowed to be destructive here, which is what he’s best at.
Joe Flood (Bautista) is an assassin extraordinaire. The opening puts him in an opera house in Budapest, where he dispatches of several bodyguards and pulls a Lincoln-esque hit all while the ballet rages on. Had I been at the ballet, my eye would have probably been drawn to the pro wrestler with the silencer in the box stage left, but that’s just me. Maybe European audiences are trained to ignore what’s not on stage.
It is only the clunky elephantine-like response team that gets the opera house in a frenzy. Flood would have washed right out the door unnoticed otherwise. Ah, but the film needed to give him someone to rescue. And that someone is lead dancer Maize Arnaud (Sofia Boutella, an actress comprised entirely of cheekbones). Stampeded by the frenzy among the gunless, Maize -to her great surprise and benefit- is saved by Joe, who took a departure from the shootout to rescue her. Awwww.
You won’t understand the plot if I don’t reveal the next part, so I’m going to: Joe & Maize fall in love. Joe has headaches. His doctor says he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Which is rare, fatal, and incurable. So, Joe, wanting Maize to benefit from his death, takes out a hit on himself. A $2M hit, btw, which makes one ask, “How much is your life insurance policy for that you can’t just give
Maize the $2M? Wouldn’t that be a nice nest egg on its own?”
I mean, seriously, this is a stupid, stupid plot. You take out a contract on yourself for the sole purpose of sticking insurance companies with a non-suicide payout … instead of just letting life happen and willing your considerable estate to your would-be partner.
Oh, but it gets better. See, the doctor made a mistake, and Joe can’t call off the hit, so now he’s gotta kill all the jokers who would show up to claim a $2M payday. What you get is something in between Inspector Clouseau and John Wick without being as good as either, but, The Killer’s Game does have some moments. And I like Bautista far better in this film than in The Eternal City.
As I explain the specifics of this film to you, I’m a tad embarrassed that I enjoyed it. To be fair, the gallery of would-be assassins is fun -especially the part where the film captions Scottish brothers. Also, I was left wondering if there really was an app for assassins; I suppose it would be kinda like Uber, except you can’t really leave a rating, huh? “Five stars, would get killed again!” I liked this film enough to have enjoyed it once. That’s as far as I will go.
There once was an assassin named Joe
With a fatal disease, doncha know?
But the doc said, “I’m wrong”
“You’re gonna live long”
“So don’t invest in your death blow”
Rated R, 104 Minutes
Director: J.J. Perry
Writer: Rand Ravich, James Coyne, Jay Bonansinga
Genre: Plots that never happen IRL
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Romantics who enjoy a good bludgeoning
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Medical professionals, I imagine
